Time for a Pacific super tollway

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The NSW Government's idea of fast-tracking the upgrade of the
Pacific Highway is to finish it within 20 years. Just how long was
it going to take before the Government decided to speed it up?
Immediately after the dual bus tragedies of 1989, the public was
told the work would be done by 2000. Every few years the time-frame
blows out. It was up to 2016, and now it's 2024. All the while, the
road toll mounts and inefficiency costs the economy hundreds of
millions of dollars. A construction time of six to eight years is
the only acceptable target - and a joint public-private project is
the way to meet it.

Changes in toll technology and the maturing of the private
infrastructure sector mean a super tollway is now feasible. The
remaining 430 kilometres of the highway can be upgraded within
eight years.

The existing annual public funding of $160 million each from
state and federal coffers would be capped at 10 years (instead of
20) and would be supplemented by revenue from a toll. The toll
could, for example, be levied at half a dozen key points along the
highway according to distance travelled. At $5 per tolling point,
the toll would raise enough money to complete the project quickly.
The private consortium would carry all the risk and would levy the
toll for 20 or more years, depending on how much governments
contribute and what the toll raises. Trucks would be the biggest
beneficiaries and would pay more (unlike the illogical federal
decision on Sydney's M7 western orbital).

The benefits to the economy and community would be powerful.
About 50 lives a year would be saved. Freight companies, and
ultimately consumers, would save time, fuel and vehicle wear and
tear. The faster construction would be a boon for employment and
tourism. Local traffic would be exempt from tolls in its area -
easy with full electronic tolling. For reasons of equity, an
alternative (longer, slower) toll-free road would have to be
provided for all priced sectors.

The first step is to complete the planning. That's the real
significance of the announcement that $50 million is to be spent
finishing detailed route selection; after 15 years of highway
huffing and puffing the plan is still missing 235 kilometres.

The NSW public has shown a practical appreciation of the
benefits of tollways. It recognises they deliver major roads years
earlier than the public purse alone could afford. With local
communities exempted, the sales pitch for this massive
private-public undertaking is straightforward. Drivers will be
willing to pay a reasonable amount for a full trip from Hexham to
the Tweed if they can save 2 hours, fuel and lives and bring
forward the highway upgrade by up to 14 years.

The state and federal governments should now put aside
buck-passing and blame-shifting and jointly call on the private
sector to realise this important national project. It is there for
the asking.

Mugabe's latest ruthless gambit

Zimbabwe may have faded from the international news in recent
months, but ugly things are still happening in Robert Mugabe's
tortured fiefdom. The latest victims are, ironically, the very
people - officially described as veterans of Zimbabwe's
independence struggle - who were lauded by President Mugabe as
pioneering patriots when he mobilised them to seize white-owned
farms by force in 2000, driving away their black labourers. This
was done in the name of a land redistribution to right colonial
injustices. Now, in areas north of Harare, those who dispossessed
the whites have been ousted in turn by marauding teams of police.
During September, hundreds of homes are reported to have been
wrecked and fields laid waste.

None of Mr Mugabe's ministers has yet publicly endorsed the
raids and, for what it's worth, a court has ordered that the
evictions be halted. The original motivation is a mystery. There
are dark suspicions that the land is coveted by senior figures in
the ruling ZANU-PF party, by members of Mr Mugabe's family or by
senior military officers. A more charitable theory is that the
police action was part of a heavy-handed attempt to impose rural
order as a precursor to restoring commercial viability to the
ravaged agricultural sector.

All this must be seen in the context of parliamentary elections
to be held in March. Whether or not the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change boycotts them, Mr Mugabe's party seems certain to
win. One reason - apart from the deeply flawed electoral system,
physical intimidation and rigid media controls - is Mr Mugabe's
demonstrated readiness to use food as a political weapon. People
driven off the land become more dependent on government food
largesse. Analysts predict the regime will maximise its control of
food stocks in the lead-up to the election, enabling it to use free
or subsidised rations to buy votes. It is suspected of secretly
importing grain stocks for the pre-election period, rather than
relying on less easily controlled international food aid.

The moral is that, in Africa, you can't keep a bad man down -
not unless you can win the wholehearted support of his African
neighbours for really tough, as opposed to symbolic, sanctions.
That's why last year's decision by the Commonwealth to continue the
suspension of Zimbabwe from membership - in which John Howard
played a leading role - was a proper but futile gesture.